History

A group of LMTs formed a professional corporation and communicated with massage technicians throughout the State of Oregon. On March 14, 1985, Susan Kerr Shawn, Doug Montgomery, Jo White and Ray Siderius signed the Articles of Incorporation, and the Oregon Massage Technicians Association was born. This early effort helped retain the Massage Board and our licensing process, as well as raising our professional standards.

Since that early effort, we have grown into a well-defined, articulate professional organization.

A variety of member services have been developed, including: Touchstone (our professional journal), a membership directory and this website.

We have sponsored several major information and educational conferences and a number of professional workshops.

A less tangible but no less important outcome of our organization is stimulating and supporting our visionary process. Questions are raised about the future of massage, our place in the workforce, our professional standards and our ideals. Through discussion, controversy and action, a greater recognition of our interdependence as a community is born.

The OBMT changed our licensing title from Technicians to Therapists, on April 6, 2001, we changed our name to the Oregon Massage Therapists Association.

At the 2017 Annual Meeting, the two remaining members of the Past Presidents Council, operating as the entire Executive Committee, unanimously voted to shutter OMTA due to declining membership and a decided lack of volunteers to run the organization. New members and renewals were accepted until December 31, 2017. Starting January 1, 2018, no new memberships nor renewals were to be accepted via the website, and any mailed-in new memberships and renewals were to be returned. OMTA will cease operations on December 31, 2018. All final accounting will be completed by February 28, 2019, and any monies remaining in the treasury will be donated to the scholarship fund for massage therapy students at Lane Community College.

Website History
In early 1997, the Executive Committee authorized Matthew Starrett-Bigg, a Portland massage therapist, to create a website for OMTA. The site went live on May 14, 1997. The original URL was http://www.altmedweb.com/~mattlmt/omta. Whew.

In 1999, Larry Park, our Membership Director, offered to create a website for OMTA. Larry secured the name, www.omta.net, and created a good stand-alone website, with basic info, a list of members and their businesses.

In 2002, Robert Bike took over, and the position of Webmaster was created on the Associate Executive Committee. Robert added all of OMTA's public documents, the library, and multiple ways to find LMTs in our Massage Finder.

In 2010, Heather Bennouri moved the membership management processes online.  Wild Apricot was chosen as the membership hosting site and software tools.  This allowed individuals to apply for membership online, online renewals, online event registrations, and the ability for members to actively manage their personal information directly.  All of the material from the previous web site was migrated to the Wild Apricot "backbone" and new material was added as well.

On December 31, 2017, under instruction of the Past Presidents Council, all new memberships and renewals ended, and the gateway for them were deleted from the website.

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2004-2005

2005-2006

2006-2007

2007-2008

2008-2009

* resigned 10/29/2008; **inducted 11/8/2008
+as of 4/19/2009, ++resigned 5/23/2009, +++resigned 9/24/09

2009-2010

2011-2012

2012-2013

2013

2014-Present

OMTA is now being run by its Past Presidents Council, Melody Morton Gandy and Robert Bike.

Annual Conference Themes, 1985-2010